Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

1696 - 1770

Venetian Artist

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Born in Venice, Tiepolo was the youngest of six children born to Orsetta,
Tiepolo's mother and his father, Domenico Tiepolo, a sea captain. While the
Tiepolo surname belongs to a patrician family, Giambattista's father did not
claim patrician status. The future artist was baptised in his parish church (San
Pietro di Castello) as Giovanni Battista, in honour of his godfather, a Venetian
nobleman called Giovanni Battista Dorià. His father Domenico died a year after
his birth, leaving Orsetta in difficult financial circumstances.

Giambattista was initially a pupil of Gregorio Lazzarini, but the influences
from elder contemporaries such as Sebastiano Ricci and Giovanni Battista
Piazzetta are stronger in his work. At 19 years of age, Tiepolo completed his
first major commission, the Sacrifice of Isaac (now in the Accademia). He left
Lazzarini studio in 1717, and was received into the Fraglia or guild of
painters.
In 1719, Tiepolo was married to Maria Cecilia Guardi, sister of two contemporary
Venetian painters Francesco and Giovanni Antonio Guardi. Together, Tiepolo and
his wife had nine children. Four daughters and three sons survived childhood.
Two sons, Domenico and Lorenzo, painted with him as his assistants and achieved
some independent recognition. His third son became a priest.
[edit]Early mature work (1726–1750)

A patrician from the Friulian town of Udine, Dionisio Delfino, commissioned a
fresco decoration of the chapel and palace from the young Tiepolo (completed
1726–1728). Tiepolo's first masterpieces in Venice were a cycle of enormous
canvases painted to decorate a large reception room of Ca' Dolfin on the Grand
Canal of Venice (ca. 1726–1729), depicting ancient battles and triumph.

These early masterpieces, novel for Venetian frescoes in their luminosity,
brought him many commissions. He painted canvases for churches such as that of
Verolanuova (1735–1740), for the Scuola dei Carmini (1740–1747), and the Chiesa
degli Scalzi (1743–1744; now destroyed) in Cannaregio, a ceiling for the Palazzi
Archinto and Casati-Dugnani in Milan (1731), the Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo
(1732–1733), a ceiling for the Gesuati (Santa Maria del Rosario) in Venice of
St. Dominic Instituting the Rosary (1737–1739), Palazzo Clerici, Milan (1740),
decorations for Villa Cordellini at Montecchio Maggiore (1743–1744) and for the
ballroom of the Palazzo Labia, now a television studio in Venice, showing the
Story of Cleopatra (1745–1750).
[edit]Tiepolo frescoes the Würzburg Residenz (1750–1753)

By 1750, Tiepolo's reputation was firmly established throughout Europe. That
year, at the behest of Prince Bishop Karl Philip von Greiffenklau, he traveled
to Würzburg where he resided for three years and executed ceiling paintings in
the New Residenz palace (completed 1744). His painting for the grandiose
Neumann-designed entrance staircase (Treppenhaus) is a massive ceiling fresco at
7287 square feet (677 m2), and was completed in collaboration with his sons,
Giandomenico and Lorenzo.[1] His Allegory of the Planets and Continents depicts
Apollo embarking on his daily course; deities around him symbolize the planets;
allegorical figures (on the cornice) represent the four continents Europe, Asia,
Africa and America. He included a self-portrait beside a portrait of his son
Giandomenico in the Europe section of this fresco.[2] He also frescoed the
Kaisersaal salon.

Return to Venice and Veneto (1753–1770)

Tiepolo returned to Venice in 1753. He was now in demand locally, as well as
abroad where he was elected President of the Academy of Padua. He went on to
complete theatrical frescoes for churches; the Triumph of Faith for the Chiesa
della Pietà; panel frescos for Ca' Rezzonico (which now also holds his ceiling
fresco from the Palazzo Barbarigo); and paintings for patrician villas in the
Venetian countryside, such as Villa Valmarana in Vicenza and an elaborate
panegyric ceiling for the now nearly-vacant Villa Pisani in Stra.

In celebrated frescoes at the Palazzo Labia, he depicted two frescoes on the
life of Cleopatra: Meeting of Anthony and Cleopatra[1] and Banquet of
Cleopatra,[2] as well as a central ceiling fresco depicts Triumph of Bellerophon
over Time. He collaborated with an expert in perspective, Girolamo Mengozzi
Colonna. Colonna who also designed sets for opera highlights the increasing
tendency towards composition as a staged fiction in his frescoes. The
architecture of theBanquet fresco also recalls Veronese's Wedding at Cannae. In
1757, he painted the altar piece commissioned by the family Thiene, the work
represents the apotheosis of Saint Cajetan, the altar piece is in the church of
hamlet of Rampazzo in the Camisano Vicentino.
[edit]Frescoes for the Royal Palace in Madrid

In 1761, Charles III commissioned Tiepolo to create a ceiling fresco to decorate
the throne room of the Royal Palace of Madrid. The panegyric theme is the
Apotheosis of Spain and has allegorical depictions recalling the dominance of
Spain in the Americas and across the globe. In Spain, he incurred the jealousy
and the bitter opposition of the rising champion of Neoclassicism, Anton Raphael
Mengs.
Tiepolo died in Madrid on March 27, 1770.

After his death, the rise of stern Neoclassicism and the post-revolutionary
decline of royal absolutism led to the slow decline of the Tiepolo style, but
had failed to dent his reputation. By 1772, Tiepolo's son was sufficiently
famous to be documented as painter to Doge Giovanni Cornaro, in charge of the
decoration of Palazzo Mocenigo a San Polo.

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